The Experts below are selected from a list of 111 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform

Romana Peronaci - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Hugh Davies - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Michel Grignon - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The Value of Fixed-Reimbursement Healthcare Insurance- Evidence from Cancer Patients in Ontario, Canada
    2020
    Co-Authors: Christopher J. Longo, Michel Grignon
    Abstract:

    Critical illness insurance (CII) is a fixed-reimbursement scheme conditioned on the event of a loss, not the size of the loss. We investigate demand for CII. Consumers will be willing to purchase CII depending on their degree of risk aversion to the cost of treating illness, their Forgone Income, and desire for being compensated for utility loss when sick. Using a theoretical model based on Eeckhoudt (2003), we run simulations using Canadian data for CII policy reimbursement dollar values of purchases, family Income, cancer expenditure, and net wealth. We then evaluate how well these models predict actual CII purchases.

  • The value of fixed reimbursement insurance against cancer related losses: simulations to investigate state dependent utility
    Global Business and Economics Review, 2012
    Co-Authors: Christopher J. Longo, Michel Grignon
    Abstract:

    Insurance literature discusses the theoretical role of state dependent utility (SDU), but empirical evidence is scant. Critical illness insurance (CII) is a fixed-reimbursement scheme where individuals buy a policy in case of an illness, and which provides an opportunity to empirically assess SDU motives. We investigate the potential role of SDU in CII purchasing behaviour, and propose consumers purchase CII depending on three competing factors: illness expenditures not fully covered through public and private mechanisms, Forgone Income due to absence or job loss, and finally desire for Income transfer when sick. We run simulations using Canadian datasets of individual earnings, industry-based information on purchased CII policy reimbursement amounts, and original data on cancer expenditures. We use the residual between what is purchased through CII (face amount) and what should be purchased to cover personal health expenditures and Forgone Income as our estimate of an SDU-based motivation for buying CII.

  • The Theory of Demand for Health Insurance
    Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2005
    Co-Authors: Michel Grignon
    Abstract:

    The Theory of Demand for Health Insurance, by John A. Nyman, 2003, Stanford Economics and Finance, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. This book exposes a new theory of demand for health insurance. Not only is this theory really new (even radically new), but it is highly welcome as well. If this theory is taken seriously by health economists, the dialogue will be easier and more fruitful between them and physicians, policy makers, health services researchers, and even the general public. To tell it in a nutshell, this book provides a much more realistic theory of demand for health insurance than the one economists routinely use, but without dropping the core of the normative economic approach of demand. In a way, it is an elegant solution to a long-lasting controversy opposing the welfarist conventional conception of demand for health insurance, which takes the demand for health care of the uninsured as the "true" willingness to pay for health care, on one hand, and the extra-welfarist approach, which takes the guidelines written by medical experts as the "norm" of health-care consumption, on the other hand. Not only is the solution elegant, it is well written and the author provides several examples to illustrate the theoretical considerations, which helps the reader to understand the key concepts. What does the new theory have to say? First, consumers do not demand (health) insurance in order to reduce financial uncertainty; the conventional theory assumes that, due to the concavity of the utility of wealth, individuals always prefer a certain financial loss to an uncertain one of the same expected magnitude. An abundant literature has shown, however, that this assumption is contradicted by empirical results (in experiments, individuals prefer uncertain losses) and yields paradoxical results. Here, Pr. Nyman uses a result (due to Rabin, 2000; Rabin and Thaler, 2001), which is not specific to health insurance, but applies to attitudes toward risk in general: there is no link between the shape of the utility function of wealth and the attitude toward risk. Second, consumers demand (health) insurance because they exhibit a concave utility of wealth, even if this concavity is not related to risk aversion. To understand the crux of the idea, it is useful to decompose it in sequence: when deciding to buy an insurance contract, I voluntarily forgo part of my Income. In case I am ill (or the event occur), my Income first decreases by the amount of health-care (damage repairing) expenditures needed to treat the illness (repair the damage caused by the event); however, due to being insured, I then receive an Income transfer that raises my Income above this lower level. If the utility of wealth is concave, and if the Income transfer is greater than the premium (i.e., if the probability of the event is lesser than one), I derive more expected utility from the Income transfer when ill than I lost utility from the Forgone Income (the premium).1 It can even be shown that the lesser the probability, the greater the gain. Third, the normative consequences of this alternative motive of demand for health insurance depart dramatically from the traditional ones. Formally, if one uses the same utility function of wealth, both theories predict the same demand for insurance. But they disagree on how to interpret a specific feature of insurance for health care, namely, the firmly established empirical fact that the insured spend more to treat their illnesses than the uninsured.2 Both theories agree on the fact that this overconsumption of the insured stems from the price pay-off mechanism specific to health insurance: while most insurances provide a lump sum of money if the event occurs (one speaks of "contingent claims contracts"), health insurance usually pays off by reducing the price of health care. Both theories also agree on the cause of this specificity, which turns around the difficulty for an insurer to monitor precisely the lump sum cost of a given illness. …

Heather Joshi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Dominique Van De Walle - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Is Workfare Cost-Effective against Poverty in a Poor Labor-Surplus Economy? - Is Workfare Cost-effective against Poverty in a Poor Labor-Surplus Economy?
    The World Bank Economic Review, 2013
    Co-Authors: Rinku Murgai, Martin Ravallion, Dominique Van De Walle
    Abstract:

    Workfare schemes impose work requirements on beneficiaries. This has seemed an attractive idea for self-targeting transfers to poor people. This incentive argument does not imply, however, that workfare is more cost-effective against poverty than even poorly-targeted options, given hidden costs of participation. In particular, even poor workfare participants in a labor-surplus economy can be expected to have some Forgone Income when they take up such a scheme. A survey-based method is used to assess the cost-effectiveness of India's Employment Guarantee Scheme in Bihar. Participants are found to have Forgone earnings, although these fall well short of market wages on average. Factoring in these hidden costs, the paper finds that for the same budget, workfare has less impact on poverty than either a basic-Income scheme (providing the same transfer to all) or uniform transfers based on the government's below-poverty-line ration cards. For workfare to dominate other options, it would have to work better in practice. Reforms would need to reduce the substantial unmet demand for work, close the gap between stipulated wages and wages received, and ensure that workfare is productive -- that the assets created are of value to poor people. Cost-effectiveness would need to be reassessed at the implied higher levels of funding.